While many assistive technology (AT) professionals (myself included) have extolled the virtues of Apple’s lineup of iPhones and iPads, the truth is that phones and tablets running on Google’s Android operating system also provide excellent options for students and adults with dyslexia. Even though Apple’s iOS operating system features unparalleled accessibility features, Android devices can be loaded with enough AT-related apps to make them quality assistive devices. The following apps, found and downloaded from the Google Play Store, should be considered essential tools for dyslexic Android users.

Learning to Self-Advocate Jamie: Coaching students to be strong self-advocates is a large part of assistive technology training. At this point, there are so many AT options that students need to be able to identify which tools work for them and be able to communicate that to others. More often than not, they know more about the technology than most of the people around them, so they need to be able to explain why they need AT to be successful and independent. That becomes especially true if they decide to go to college, where they no longer have IEPs that spell out their accommodations. When I am working with high school students, I like to make sure they are ready to advocate for themselves by the time graduation rolls around. You work with younger kids — do you foster self-advocacy skills at that age?

Kyle: My students are 10 and 11 years old, but they need those skills for the same reasons you mentioned for high school students. The untidy reality is that my students also have to know how to advocate for access to their tools. I am sure that you have encountered the wide range of teacher philosophies about assistive tech. You hear everything from, “If he uses speech-to-text he will never learn to write.” Or, “Audiobooks will prevent her from learning how to decode words.” I have witnessed teachers resist even the most minor adjustments, like refusing to offer extra time to finish an assessment because they think it will give a child an unfair advantage over other students in the class. I am always prepared to debate these issues, but that is not as helpful as giving my students the language — and the permission — to address it themselves. That kind of coaching requires a kind of nuance which can be more challenging for younger children, but the earlier they learn how to explain and advocate, the smoother their school road will be.

Lou Salza's insight:

Great conversation! Thank you Kyle Redford and Jamie Martin for insights into the importance of assistive technology and self advocacy for those who walk in dyslexia nation!

It was the late 1960s. I’d finished medical school, and I was planning to go into cardiac surgery. Everybody tried to talk me out of it. Looking back, I can understand why. It had been less than 20 years since the development of cardio-pulmonary bypass made it possible for surgeons to perform complex open heart procedures. Cardiac surgery was a rigorous and fast-moving discipline. The work would be hard, the hours would be long, and the learning curve was steeper than Mount Washington.

And I had a few things going against me. For one, there was my academic record. I’d worked hard as undergraduate, but long days and nights in the library produced little more than a collection of Cs. Twelve of 13 medical schools rejected me. I was the least talented person in my residency. That’s why people told me that it would be a mistake for me to go into cardiac surgery.

Lou Salza's insight:

Toby Cosgrove is the CEO of the Cleveland Clinic. He holds 30+ patents in cardiac medicine and leads a $7+billion organization that has become a model for controlling the increase in medical costs while delivering excellent care. Did I mention that he has dyslexia?--Lou

Someday your iPhone home button will be damaged or not work at the speed you want. At that point it will be time to adjust the centre button on your iPhone and use the assistive touch button. Here we explain how to activate Assistive Touch to adjust the centre button of the iPhone. Enabling Assistive Touch makes a semi-transparent button appear. Tapping this button will allow you to access the same functions as the home button on your iPhone does.

Lou Salza's insight:

Remarkable web site for all those like me who need a step by step walk through that I can repeat! There are screens for many different issues: how to unfreeze a frozen iPhone, how to speed up a slow phone etc., --Lou

Slow processing speed isn’t a learning or attention issue on its own. But it can contribute to learning and attention issues like ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia and auditory processing disorder.

It can also impact executive functioning skills. These are the thinking skills that help kids plan, set goals, respond to problems and persist on tasks. Kids who are slow to process information may have trouble getting started on assignments, staying focused and monitoring how well they’re doing.

Lou Salza's insight:

Concise, accurate description of how students experience slow processing speed. Our students who struggle with learning differences like dyslexia & ADHD and slow processing can be supported in any school by offering opportunities for project based learning that de-emphasizes time constraints and instead rewards thoughtful, longer term assignments that aim for deeper understanding. Assistive technology can assist with production. --Lou

Ask parents how important it is to instill kindness in their kids, and most will rank it high: even as their very top priority, according to Harvard researchers. But children surveyed by the university’s Making Caring Common (pdf) project said, overwhelmingly, that they were getting a different message. The researchers spoke with 10,000 kids at a range of middle and high schools in the US in 2013 to 2014. Nearly 80% said that their parents taught them that personal happiness and high achievement were more important than caring for other people. But all is not lost. The study makes some recommendations for raising children that genuinely believe kindness is important:

Lou Salza's insight:

An important article posted on her fb page by my wife, Dell. Thanks Dell!-Lou

Excerpt:

1) Give kids opportunities to practice being kind.

Children aren’t born with an innate ability to act kindly, but learn it in the same way as they might pick up an instrument or a language. Daily opportunities to practice—something as simple as helping another child with homework—can make a difference.

2) Children need to learn two important skills.

These will help kids build a wider “circle of concern,” the researchers say. Children need to learn to “zoom in” on individuals, and truly listen to them. They also need to be able to “zoom out” to see a bigger picture—effectively, learning to put human experience in context.

3) Kids need role models.

That doesn’t mean being perfect parents. It means working on empathy, and demonstrating concern and sympathy so that children can be exposed to it.

4) Help children manage destructive feelings.

Shame, anger, and jealousy can override the intention to be kind. Kids need to know that such feelings are normal, but can be addressed in different ways. Children are “moral philosophers,” the researchers write. “When adults spark children’s thinking with ethical questions they put issues of injustice on children’s radar and help children learn how to weigh their various responsibilities to others and themselves.”

5) Adults should stop passing the buck.

Parents worry about children’s moral state, the researchers note, but it’s hard to find adults who admit they might be part of the problem. Adults need to interrogate the messages they’re sending, and ask themselves: what values am I really instilling?

Even a one-time, 30-minute online intervention can spur academic gains for many students, particularly those with poor grades. The premise is that these positive effects can stick over years, leading for example to higher graduation rates; but long-term data is still needed to confirm that.

Earlier, well-designed tests of simple and relatively inexpensive growth-mindset interventions had surprisingly shown improvements in students’ grades over weeks or months. For instance, promising results from one famous experiment – an eight-session workshop in 91 seventh graders in a New York City school – led psychology researchers Carol Dweck and Lisa Blackwell to start up Mindset Works, a company that offers a computer-based program called Brainology.

In the grip of grief. These are not my boys. This is not my school, my story. Yet, once more, I am holding hurt -- my own, the hurt girls in my school feel, the hurt braided with fear that every parent feels when adolescent illusions of invincibility are dashed.

Lou Salza's insight:

Our school communities share so many close connections: We may serve in one school and send our children to another. We are joined in the triumphs and tragedies of our communities. In this remarkable essay, Ann Klotz, Head of Laurel School for Girl's writes her grief our grief--at the loss of two boys at Hawken School last week. Wherever we serve, whoever we are, these are our boys--this is our loss. I found her willingness and capacity to share her grief a comfort. Thank you Ann! --Lou

"Finally, there was a structured, systematic and hierarchical method for helping socially isolated and socially neglected students find their way through the maze of interpersonal connections and relationships. The science of making and keeping friends would no longer remain a mystery."

The results after the first year of the PEERS program at Lawrence have been profound. Students have been engaged in the lessons and practicing skills at home and in social situations.

In fact, the program has been so successful that Lawrence will be offering a special summer session of PEERS - which is open to Lawrence School students and non-students alike in Grades 7 and 8 - starting next month. For more information, please see our Summer Programs page.

"Parents have noted that they have begun to see their children interacting with peers in ways they have not seen before," Culp said. "One parent notes that her daughter now has 35-minute phone conversations with friends that she initiates. This is a child who never would have considered calling a friend to talk before the PEERS program."

Lou Salza's insight:

For many years since I read Lev Vygotsky in graduate school, I have understood that learning is socially mediated. In my work with students over the decades, I understand that the experience that most students have in school is essentially social. When students are rejected by their peers, isolated from the social interactions that make life in school meaningful, everyone suffers: the child, the parents, and the school. The PEERS program out of UCLA is a structured, systematic, multisensory approach to making and keeping friends. We have seen remarkable results already. We are grateful to The Burton D. Morgan Foundation, for their support to our school as we have learned to provide this program to our students and to our parents!--Lou

We live in a high tech world—with high tech classrooms. We embrace the benefits of using iPads during class, integrating tweets during presentations, and teaching students while using smart TVs. We know the many benefits of incorporating technology while teaching, such as adding diversity to lessons, increasing student interaction, and to bringing new perspectives and knowledge to the class.

But there can be a negative side resulting from inappropriate or overuse of technology, and that negative side can have serious and long-term consequences. To make the best out of tools of technology, teachers and parents must also recognize their downsides and how to avoid them.

Lou Salza's insight:

Excellent reminder that adults-parents and teachers must keep up with our children's use of technology. The article details results of research and offers several ways that we can help our kids avoid the negative impacts and benefit from the tools now available-- Lou

Excerpt:

Monitor the use of technology. Whether you’re a parent, teacher, or both, make sure you know how your kids are using technology. Many classroom computers have restrictions on which sites can be used. If yours doesn’t, consider adding them or checking the search history to know what your students are doing. For parents, some mobile phone plans offer family-friendly options that let parents restrict calls or texts during parent-established times.Teach responsible usage. We don’t suggest ignoring what technology can offer. Instead, talk with students about establishing their Internet footprint, and the long-range consequences of putting inappropriate information into cyberspace. Encourage students to discuss tricky situations they may encounter online and help them work to a positive resolution.Be familiar with technology. Keep up with what those young people are into. Vine, Snapchat, or whatever the current online trend is, stay current so you can recognize and head off any problems early on.Use classroom technology intentionally. It’s easy to allow technology (i.e. videos, movies) to take precedence in a lesson. Be sure to use these tools to augment—not substitute for—your teaching.Offer alternatives to technology. Give students an assignment that requires reading a hard copy of a material. Task them with interviewing each other—in person—instead of texting questions. Conduct class outside where you can sit and discuss a topic without the usual distractions.

Both Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) and 504 plans can offer formal help for K–12 students with learning and attention issues. They’re similar in some ways but quite different in others. This chart compares them side-by-side to help you understand the differences.

For 16 years we’ve been locked outside my firstborn son’s head. Sam is a boy, fast becoming a man, whose sense of the world around him is defined by his own fixed point on the autism spectrum. He can rarely conceive what’s expected of him in social situations, and by that I mean a setting as routine as a family dinner with his parents and his two brothers—let alone an environment as demanding as high school, or the adult world.

But for two hours recently, we got a glimpse at some of the chaos that might be raging in there, thanks to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time—the innovative, high-tech theatrical adaptation of Mark Haddon’s 2003 best-selling novel of the same name. The play, which was recently nominated for six Tony Awards, came to New York from London’s National Theatre in a production directed by Marianne Elliott (War Horse). It takes an immersive approach to communicating the internal state of its hero, Christopher. Like Sam, Christopher is an autistic teenage boy who’s often perplexed by the day-to-day demands of human interaction.

Lou Salza's insight:

Amazing book--and an absolutely astounding play. Riveting performance, insightful adaptation of the book and deeply sensitive treatment of autism. If you are in NYC see it!--Lou

Excerpt: "...The production team set the show inside a big black box. (It’s the same team that premiered the play in London, with a different cast.) The three walls facing the audience are lit to look like graph paper; letters and symbols and mathematic equations cascade across them, sometimes defying gravity, streaming up from the floor to the ceiling. When Christopher is distressed, electronic music pounds and seizure-inducing hot white lights flash..."

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) consistently finds that 35% of fourth graders in the United States are reading at a level that is below basic. Research has demonstrated that most reading difficulties can be resolved or diminished when reading is taught by a highly knowledgeable and skilled teacher.

The identification of individuals with dyslexia and other reading difficulties, and appropriate instruction by a well-trained teacher using a structured approach to teaching reading, has been a cornerstone of IDA since its beginning. The components of Structured Literacy are outlined in the IDA Knowledge and Practice Standards for Teachers of Reading. To ensure that teachers and specialists are appropriately trained, IDA reviews and accredits teacher training programs and will begin certifying individuals in 2016. For more information about the IDA Standards and credentialing, click here.

IDA views accreditation and certification as key strategies to change the way reading is taught in classrooms across America. Through accreditation and certification, IDA develops a direct line that connects teacher preparation programs to teacher competency and, in turn, to student achievement. IDA accredited programs produce highly knowledgeable and skilled teachers of reading who seek certification and positively impact reading achievement for all students.

Lou Salza's insight:

It will require comprehensive, cooperative efforts from state and local politicians, university schools of education, superintendents and administrators, parents and teachers to turn this shameful situation around. Sen. Cassidy and Decoding Dyslexia are making great progress!

David Flink To Headline 2015 Community Education Series6/25/2015An appearance by nationally recognized LD advocate and author David Flink headlines a high-profile lineup scheduled for the 2015 Community Education Series at Lawrence School, the school announced today.

The popular series returns for its third consecutive year this fall.

Flink, who is the co-founder of Eye to Eye and author of the book, Thinking Differently, will speak at Lawrence Upper School on Sept. 9 in the second session of a four-part series that also features recently retired Headmaster of Marburn Academy Earl Oremus (Aug. 18); psychologist, author and teacher Dr. Lisa Damour (Oct. 20); and an assistive technology presentation by the tech staff of Lawrence School (Nov. 11).

All four sessions are open to the public and free of charge. Each event will be held at Lawrence Upper School, located at 10036 Olde Eight Road in Sagamore Hills, and run from 7-8:30 p.m. The free Community Education Series aims to advance Lawrence School’s vision of serving as a regional resource for the northeast Ohio community.

We are thrilled to have David Flink, Earl Oremus, Lisa Damour and our own Learning and Assistive Technology faculty reaching out to families in NEOH to promote greater understanding of students with learning differences! Please join us!-Lou

Inside Out” is about how five emotions — personified as the characters Anger, Disgust, Fear, Sadness and Joy — grapple for control of the mind of an 11-year-old girl named Riley during the tumult of a move from Minnesota to San Francisco. (One of us suggested that the film include the full array of emotions now studied in science, but Mr. Docter rejected this idea for the simple reason that the story could handle only five or six characters.)

Riley’s personality is principally defined by Joy, and this is fitting with what we know scientifically. Studies find that our identities are defined by specific emotions, which shape how we perceive the world, how we express ourselves and the responses we evoke in others.

But the real star of the film is Sadness, for “Inside Out” is a film about loss and what people gain when guided by feelings of sadness. Riley loses friends and her home in her move from Minnesota. Even more poignantly, she has entered the preteen years, which entails a loss of childhood.

We do have some quibbles with the portrayal of sadness in “Inside Out.” Sadness is seen as a drag, a sluggish character that Joy literally has to drag around through Riley’s mind. In fact, studies find that sadness is associated with elevated physiological arousal, activating the body to respond to loss. And in the film, Sadness is frumpy and off-putting. More often in real life, one person’s sadness pulls other people in to comfort and help.

Those quibbles aside, however, the movie’s portrayal of sadness successfully dramatizes two central insights from the science of emotion.

Lou Salza's insight:

Interesting commentary about the important role emotions play in our lives--particularly as we develop deeper understanding about how our students experience our schools and our classrooms.

My take away? Let's lead with the heart--then get our minds due north using a backbone to confront the adult-driven politics that have riven our public schools then take the stand in education that puts students first in every consideration. - Lou

When students take notes, comprehension is enhanced as they process, organize and restate information in their own words. Listen to Joan Sedita, founder of Keys to Literacy describe the format of two-column note taking. This is an excerpt from The Key Comprehension Routine Professional Development training for teachers. Visit keystoliteracy.com to learn more

Lou Salza's insight:

Joan Sedita has provided some of the best professional development we have undertaken at Lawrence School to improve faculty capacity and student outcomes in vocabulary and comprehension. This explanation of two column notes is a keeper!--Lou

Being a dyslexic might be a problem when reading in the classroom, but it hasn’t stopped some of Britain’s greatest racing drivers from achieving success – men like Jackie Stewart, Nigel Mansell and Johhny Herbert. Stewart believes that it ultimately played a key role in his success on track. Canadian F1 writer and friend of JA on F1, Jeff Pappone investigates: Dyslexics are always finding work arounds for things that come easily for others, Stewart insisted that his disability led him down paths that others might ignore, something that gave him extra ammo to help defeat his rivals. “The dyslexic cannot think like the ‘clever’ folk, so they have to be thinking out of the box and if they are doing that, they are finding new ways of doing things,” said Stewart who was one of the first F1 drivers to cultivate sponsorship. “When I was a racing driver, I had a really good communication system with my engineers. I could paint pictures of how my car was behaving, what it felt like, how it did this or that, and I could explain it graphically and make them feel it, so they had a better chance of thinking ‘Hey, I never thought of that.’”

Lou Salza's insight:

Stewart has been an eloquent spokesperson for the impact of dyslexia since he brought his own son to the US in the 1980's for an opportunity to attend the Landmark school for dyslexics in Massachusetts. I love Stewart's description of his own thought process when confronting problems. --Lou

In the classroom, however, he was vulnerable, an easy target for schoolmates brave enough to make comments about his academic problems. Cooper didn't begin taking special education classes until his freshman year yet he knew issues existed.

What some students could read and comprehend in 30 minutes could take him two hours. Like many youngsters with learning disabilities, Cooper's shortcomings didn't become apparent until he reached middle school.

"You could give him a paragraph to read aloud and he could read it fine," said his mother, Dawn, a social worker. "But when you asked him what it meant, he'd have to re-read it a couple of times to understand it."

Dawn and her husband, Louis, who works for the Port of Tacoma, have master's degrees. Their daughter, Keysha, owns a degree in sociology. The Coopers understand the value of education. They used sports as "hooks" to keep their son engaged academically.

Kathleen Miller, a special education teacher at Wilson, said Louis was particularly vigilant with the boy everyone called "X." It wasn't easy. Cooper was initially embarrassed about requiring three special education classes even though some of his teammates also were enrolled in them.

Barbs from other students were hurtful.

"I was definitely teased a lot," Cooper said. "They would tell me, 'You're getting a pass because you're an athlete' and 'you're dumb, why are you in the same (learning disabled) class all day?'"

Lou Salza's insight:

Cooper discovered he needs to move or at least 'do something' in order to retain what he wanted to learn. The importance of kinesthetic reinforcement needs more attention from schools. All the best to X and the Browns! --Lou

According to Horn, who also is author of Blended: Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools, Los Angeles is a classic case of a school district getting caught up in the ed tech frenzy without fully thinking through why technology is important in the first place.

“LA is emblematic of a problem we’re seeing across the country right now,” he says. “Districts are starting with the technology and not asking themselves: ‘What problem are we trying to solve, and what’s the instructional model we need to solve it?’ and then finding technology in service of that.”

Lou Salza's insight:

Let's not blame the technology. This was a failure of management and leadership. The program was not aligned with a mission, mission was not targeted to solve a particular problem, and there were no internal controls that guaranteed prudent use of resources and cost controls. No one devised a way to collect data and evaluate effectiveness. The problem is not with the iPads! This is a a classic, massive failure of execution at leadership and management levels.--Lou

Rep. Steven Palazzo and his wife, Lisa, recognized about three years ago that their youngest son, Bennett, was struggling with reading so they hired tutors, but nothing seemed to work.

They had the fourth-grader tested recently and learned he had dyslexia, a learning disability that involves difficulty learning to read.

“When he realized he wasn’t slow or dumb, his attitude changed. He knows he’s smart and knows there’s a way out,” said Palazzo, a Republican representing Mississippi’s 4th District. “I just wish we could have caught this when he was in first or second grade.’’

Palazzo and Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana are on a mission to raise awareness about dyslexia. Cassidy’s daughter, Kate, also is dyslexic.

Lou Salza's insight:

It always boils down to something personal. That's ok! We'll take it, support their initiatives and hope for legislative change!-Lou

Equality is about sameness, it promotes fairness and justice by giving everyone the same thing. BUT it can only work if everyone starts from the same place. In the example on the left, equality only works if everyone is the same height.

Equity is about fairness, it’s about making sure people get access to the same opportunities. In the example on the right, because of varying height, each person gets what he needs to remove barriers to participation.

~ Source Unknown.

Lou Salza's insight:

Eventually we need to reimagine school--and redesign learning environments to eliminate the need for accommodations. --Lou

6 Important Trends in Education Technology A number of experts weighed in on the six technology trends that are making the biggest impact on education. If you read the report itself, you’ll see not only a description of what the trend is (which we’ve summarized below), but also a few examples of institutions or organizations that have already embraced it.

Lou Salza's insight:

It is all here: innovation, collaboration, sharing content and data, assessment, open source tools and resources!--Lou

I found this interchange between Arne Duncan and Senator Cassidy fascinating. Senator Cassidy of the Bipartisan Dyslexia Congress is flabbergasted: If Dyslexia is 80% of LDs and comprise at least half of students can't read, “Why the heck Don’t you have a specific program for Dyslexia?”

Senator Bill Cassidy is the parent of a child with dyslexia and is also a physician.

Lou's on to something here. One of the most wonderful things I've observed in the past few years is the speed and persistence with which the grassroots dyslexia lobby has grown in so many state, and is now having an even greater impact with the federal government.

“Everybody is in denial about depression and anxiety,” Dr. Aaron Krasner, the adolescent transitional living service chief at Silver Hill, told Yahoo. “So it makes sense to me that until the sh-- is really hitting the fan, parents and kids aren’t interested in talking about these problems. In some ways, parents don’t want to know and would rather do anything than acknowledge that their kid has a problem.”

Mental health issues are prevalent among teens: The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) cited four million children and adolescents in the United States suffer from a serious mental disorder, with 21 percent of children ages 9 to 17 having a diagnosable mental or addictive disorder. NAMI added when these disorders are left untreated, teens use more health care services and face higher health care costs when they become adults. And for teens whose issues stem from bullying, they’re more likely to suffer from mental health problems later in life.

Lou Salza's insight:

Concerns about depression and anxiety are especially relevant to families of children and adolescents who struggle in school with learning differences. Isn't it time we all gave ourselves permission to speak more openly, work more cooperatively, and implement programs more thoughtfully than we are right now?---Lou

My favorite passage:

"......parents need to start thinking of mental health issues, like anxiety and depression, as the psychiatric illnesses they are, not “character flaws.” Mental disorders are neurological problems, and there are treatments available for teens to reduce their symptoms."

DENVER - Denver Public Schools gave 80,000 audiobooks to students struggling with dyslexia.

Dyslexia and other reading disabilities affect one in every five Colorado students according to Learning Alley, a national nonprofit organization who helps students who are blind, visually impaired, or dyslexic.

Students will be able to access 80,000 books on their computers, tablets, smartphones, iPods, or other devices. The audiobooks include textbooks and other literature titles.

Now more than 4,500 students in 165 Denver Public Schools will have access to audiobook technology due to a partnership with Learning Ally and a grant from The Denver Foundation.

The number of students enrolled in the Learning Ally program is expected to reach 5,200 students this year and 85 percent of Denver Public Schools are currently enrolled in the Learning Ally program.

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